During this year’s PAX East, The Behemoth had a large showing of their newest title now available in Early Access on Steam and Xbox One, Pit People. During the show we got to sit down with both the single player and co-op multiplayer modes, as well as talk with the developer.
The Interview
Check out our PAX East audio interview below with Ian Moreno, game developer at The Behemoth, where we talk at length about the gameplay and design of Pit People, and much more. You can stream the interview with this link.
Hands-On Impressions
Our demo time with Pit People took us through the first twenty to thirty minutes of the campaign, introducing the story of a giant space bear that crashed into the game’s world, spilling its time and space altering blood across the planet and breaking it up into a hex-shape cracked world. Players take the role of Horatio, a humble blueberry farmer who is attacked by local hooligans.
It happens.
The single player campaign has players controlling up to six characters in a turn-based strategy style that is simple in appearance and execution, but becomes complex in depth as the game progresses. The co-op mode is also played the same way, but with each player taking the reigns and customizing three of the six characters independently.
The game is hilariously narrated and right out of the gate is incredibly goofy and irreverent in its humor. Never expect anything to be taken seriously in the world of a Behemoth game. The demo playthrough had us laughing throughout its entirety.
Pit People also looks to have persistent playability as updates continue rolling out for the game. Even through the Early Access development of the game, balance of characters and weapons are constantly happening to keep the game competitive for its player versus player aspect.
From what we’ve played of both modes, Pit People looks to have a very promising road ahead as the new updates to continue to release with a targeted full-release late this year.
Kyle’s Take
During PAX East I was able to jump into the co-operative mode demo with Jamie, taking the reins of half of our team’s six units as Jamie took the other three. From the start Pit People doesn’t put up an easy challenge, and coordinating our turn together was crucial, as each of our units were strong offensively and defensively against certain enemies, and weak against offensively and defensively against others. For example a shield & sword unit could defend against archers well, but offensively was weak against units with helmets. Those were best left to units with hefty mallets, good for brain mashing.
We also got to see a bit of the team recruitment aspects that I’m looking forward to trying out some more. In general I’m looking forward to playing more of the couch co-op in Pit People as not only is the narrative funny, with the humor also coming through in its combat, but just the joy of a well built couch co-op game is hard to beat as an experience.
Trailer
